


Scars to Your Beautiful

by bashfulpenguin



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, Fluff, M/M, NYC, New York City, Shrunkyclunks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:08:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22207639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bashfulpenguin/pseuds/bashfulpenguin
Summary: AU where every time someone lies a scar appears on their body. And Bucky has a lot of scars.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 41
Kudos: 267





	Scars to Your Beautiful

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文-普通话 國語 available: [Scars to Your Beautiful](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28618374) by [kanpohongchengdeC](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanpohongchengdeC/pseuds/kanpohongchengdeC)



No one knew why it happened, but ever since anyone could remember a small scar would appear anytime someone lied. 

It was like the real life version of Pinocchio, except nothing reset. Scars didn’t fade, they just scabbed over on bodies. A lifelong souvenir to let you and everyone else know what you did. 

Everyone had some scars. Every toddler lied to their parents at some point or another, and everyone accepted that sometimes scars would just appear. It was okay. 

What wasn’t okay was a body covered in them. Arms cross stitched with jagged scars, some white and faded from time, and others a newer pink that still stung. 

Bucky hated how his body was covered in scars. How mothers pulled their children away from him or people always left a seat open next to him on the subway. 

The first few years it started to happen Bucky was quick to try and defend himself. It wasn’t his fault! He’d say with a small shrug and sad eyes. It really wasn’t, he knew for sure when no new scars appeared every time he defended himself. 

But as the years went on, he gave up. He realised that nothing he said would change people's opinions of him. Maybe he should just leave the city and move into the woods to become a hermit. He’d be better off there. 

Bucky shook his head and frowned after the fifth person on the subway looked at the empty seat next to him and went right back off the train. 

He knew he shouldn’t take it personally but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt any less. 

“This seat taken?” Bucky looked up and saw the source of the voice. A tall blonde and very muscular man was standing above him, hovering just above the empty seat. 

The man cleared his throat, bringing Bucky out of his head. “Oh. Uh yeah. I- I mean. No. It’s open. Take a seat,” he choked out. No one ever talked to him. Especially not in public. “Sorry, I’m just not used to people sitting next to me. Or Talking to me,” he explained. 

The man smiled. God his smile. It was so bright. “Why?” He asked as he took a seat. “Is it because you’re so attractive?” 

Bucky snorted. “No need to make fun of me.” 

“No!” The man’s eyes tripled in size, making Bucky laugh. “You are really attractive.” 

Bucky narrowed his eyes and searched the man’s body for a scar to form. Sometimes people would mess with him, but it didn’t last long because no one wanted to risk getting another scar. And especially not over him. 

“If you’re looking for a scar I can tell you, you won’t find it,” the man supplied. “I’m being serious.” He gave him another smile, this time smaller and more calculating, but still one of the most beautiful and bright things Bucky had seen in awhile. 

“I’m Bucky,” he decided to say, if not just to see the man smile again. 

It must have worked because a smile, bigger than the first one cracked across the man’s face. “Steve,” the man- Steve- said. “What kind of name is Bucky?” 

“Technically, it’s a nickname. My little sister Becca gave it to me years ago.”

“Why Bucky though?” The smile hadn’t faded off of Steve’s face, and Bucky was having a hard time keeping one off his own. 

“Full name’s James Buchanan Barnes. Hence Bucky.”

“Like the President!” Steve said, bouncing up in his seat a little. 

Bucky laughed, “yeah, like the president.” 

And just as Bucky was getting comfortable talking to Steve, something had to ruin it. Like always. 

“Thank you for your service,” an older man said, leaning down towards Steve. 

“Uh, you’re welcome,” Steve said, shoving on a tight-lipped and not nearly as bright smile. 

“Don’t you go hurting him,” he said, turning to Bucky with a scowl on his face. “That man’s a national treasure.” 

And then he spit on Bucky. It wasn’t out of a normal day for him. He didn’t exactly try and hide his scars so sometimes a really enthusiastic person would just feel the need to match straight up to him and tell him how awful he was. And sometimes that included spit. 

“Hey!” Steve said, getting up. Any trace of a smile was wiped off his face. It was just pure rage. “You can’t just do that to people.”

“Steve,” he warned. “Don’t.” Steve looked between him and the man, who appeared more like a deer caught in the headlights than the angry elder he did just a minute ago. 

Steve sighed and sank back into his seat. “I’m sorry. I just get passionate about things. He can’t just make assumptions like that!”

“That’s fine,” Bucky shrugged. “But you don’t need to pick fights over me.”

“But he doesn’t even know you! He can’t just assume that you’d hurt me.”

“Steve,” Bucky said, placing a hand on Steve’s arm, getting his attention. “You don’t even know me. How do you know I wouldn’t. I mean come on, I look like this.” 

“I used to look like that,” Steve said softly. 

Bucky racked his eyes across his body. Not a single scar was visible. “How?” He breathed out, leaning in like it was some sort of secret. Bucky supposed it was. 

“Can my daughter get a picture with you?” A woman in yoga pants carting a seven year old said, making Bucky fly away from Steve. 

“Um?” Steve said, blinking up at the woman and her kid. 

“We’ll be quick, I promise,” she said, shoving her daughter at him. Steve just nodded and smiled at the camera shoved in his face. 

“You’re my favourite Avenger behind Iron Man!” The little girl said before turning into her mother’s leg. 

Now it was Bucky’s turn to go wide eyed. “Let me guess. Steve. As in Steve Rogers.” 

Steve nodded his head and looked down at his hands folded in his lap. Bucky nodded and turned towards the window. It was the subway so he couldn’t see anything, but pretending to be fascinated with whatever was out the window was better than looking at Steve. 

After a few long minutes of silence and attempts to see out the window, they finally pulled up at Bucky’s stop. 

“Well, this is my stop,” Bucky said, standing up and mentally face palming himself. He spun on his heels and walked off the train and up into the city. 

He didn’t even know why it bothered him so much. Steve was nice to him, it shouldn’t have mattered if he was an avenger or not. 

But the old man was right. Steve was a national treasure. It wasn’t like Steve was going to sweep him off his feet and marry him on the spot, they talked for maybe five minutes on public transportation. But it was nice to imagine that maybe he could have someone who didn’t see him as just a pile of scars. 

He didn’t know if lying to himself constituted a new scar, but he knew he’d be lying if he said he was worthy of even talking to Steve Rogers. 

“Hey wait up!” 

Bucky sighed and turned around. Sure enough Steve was there. 

“It’s the serum,” he said. Bucky blinked at him in confusion. What did that have to do with anything that had just happened? “The serum makes me heal like crazy. No scars have time to form and any that were already there from before vanished like my asthma did.” 

“So what does that have to do with anything?” It was a cool story, Bucky would admit that. If he had the option to do that, he probably would too. But he didn’t really get what it had to do with him, other than to just rub in the fact that Bucky was damaged goods. 

“It means I want to get to know you. Beyond the scars. Fuck, Bucky, everyone lies. You seem like a cool guy, and you’re really attractive, I don’t have anything to loose.”

Bucky shook his head. He never imagined that Captain America would be an idiot, yet here he was. “I’m a stranger you met ten minutes ago on the subway who is covered in evidence that I am not a good person and you think that ‘getting to know me’ is a good idea?” 

Steve’s face split into a blinding grin again, making Bucky smile in spite himself. “Yeah. How’s coffee sound?” 

And he didn’t really know why. Maybe it was because he wanted to see the damned smile again or maybe it was because Steve was willing to look past the scars. But he found himself matching the grin on Steve’s face and saying; “coffee sounds great.”

**Author's Note:**

> My friend gave me this prompt and I just had to do something with it!  
> Come find me on tumblr @nervous-bee !!  
> And pls be gentle in the comments, this is literally my first ever fanfiction


End file.
